Part 10 (2/2)
While these varied historical events were taking place, the city was steadily gathering to itself prestige and reputation. Its houses now excel in number and beauty, its streets, wide and well paved, are edged with the smoothest of stone walks and lined with elms, maples, and gra.s.sy lawns. The distinctive buildings of the munic.i.p.ality, its court-houses, schools, police stations, water-works, and engine houses are remarkable for their excellent architecture and well-kept condition. The churches, by their number and in their construction, indicate the possession of religious desire and aesthetic taste. The manufacturing interests of Detroit are varied. Its commercial representatives are found in almost every country, and ”Detroit” stoves, drugs, and chemicals are known in every clime. We have numerous parks, but Belle Isle is indeed the priceless jewel in the crown of Detroit: woods of green and waters of blue, art and nature, moving waves and waving gra.s.s, stillness and activity, vistas and broad views, beautiful flowers and lofty trees, the white sails of numerous vessels, and the swift motions of great steamers all alike are combined in the captivating beauties of this favored place.
Besides serving as a charm to drive away care, our beautiful river gives us one of the greatest ports in the world. More tonnage pa.s.ses annually through ”the Detroit” than in the same time enters and clears the combined ports of London and Liverpool. During the season nearly four hundred vessels pa.s.s daily, bearing more grain and minerals than traverse any other stream in the world. The city is a central starting-point for reaching all northern summer resorts, and more steamboat pa.s.sengers arrive and depart from our wharves than from any others on the Lakes. The stream that attracted the earliest visitors attracts later ones as well. The river never overflows and therefore is never a menace, but always a joy and blessing. Yachts, sail-boats, barges, sh.e.l.ls, ferries, steamers, and great ”whale-backs” fly and ply over it, and in the season it is a panorama of beauty, gay with music, streamers, and happy _voyageurs_.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Under treaty stipulations negro and Indian slaves were held until Michigan became a State. Detroit has always had to do with slavery questions. Before the Civil War it was an important station on the ”Underground Railroad,” and occasionally slaves were seized on our streets.
Some of the conspicuous leaders of the party that secured the abolition of slavery lived at one time or another in Detroit. General Grant's home may still be seen. United States Senator Zachariah Chandler of ”blood-letting letter” fame was one of our oldest merchants, and the notable ”fire-in-the-rear” editorial appeared in a local paper.
[4] The gateway was located on what is now the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Griswold Street, and a bronze tablet there erected bears a representation of an Indian warrior and the following inscription:
”This Tablet designates the site of one of the gateways of Fort Detroit. The original stockade was known as Fort Pontchartrain and was erected when the city was founded in 1701.
”Through the gateway here located Pontiac, the Ottawa chief, with a band of Indians, pa.s.sed on May seventh, 1763, intending to surprise and ma.s.sacre the garrison.
”The exposure of his plot on the previous day caused the defeat of his plans and gave the English the supremacy in this region until the close of the Revolutionary War.”
[5] The Post-office on Fort Street, which occupies a portion of the site of this fort, displays at its southerly entrance a tablet erected in 1896 which bears the following inscription:
”This Tablet designates the site of an English Fort erected in 1778 by Major R.B. Lernoult as a defense against the Americans. It was subsequently called Fort Shelby, in honor of Gov. Isaac Shelby of Kentucky, and was demolished in 1826.
The evacuation of this Fort by the British at 12 o'clock noon, July 11th, 1796, was the closing act of the War of Independence.
On that day the American Flag was for the first time raised over this soil, all of what was then known as the Western Territory becoming at that time part of the Federal Union.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
MACKINAC
”THE HOME OF THE GIANT FAIRIES”
BY SARA ANDREW SHAFER
At the northernmost point of the meeting of the waters of the mighty trio of lakes which divide the States of the Middle West from the Dominion of Canada, lies an archipelago in size and beauty like that of the
”Sprinkled isles, Lily on lily that o'erlace the sea, And laugh their pride when the light waves whisper 'Greece.'”
An old writer says that there are two-and-thirty thousand of them, great and small, cl.u.s.tered chiefly where Huron leans her head to meet those of Michigan and Superior, ”as if they were discussing some great matter.”
Perhaps they are talking over the old days and the things and people they knew long ago. Perhaps they speak of the morning when, according to an old saga, the wors.h.i.+ppers of the Rising Sun in February saw the Island like a great turtle--_Nocchenemockenung_--rise slowly out of the water, to become the home of the Giant Fairies of the Michsawgyegan, or Lake Country, and to be a place of refuge for the vanished peoples, whose names are as the sound of many waters for beauty and for harmony. Perhaps they tell of the wild, free life of those roving, painted bands of fishers, trappers, and hunters which make pictures of so much action and color against the ever-s.h.i.+fting background of these seas and sh.o.r.es. Perhaps they tell of the coming of the Black Robes in the days when the lilies of France had no fear of the lion of England, and the eagle of the American Republic was as yet unthought of.
There are things enough of which the Lakes may speak as their waves lapse on the beach of
”This precious stone set in a silver sea.”
[Ill.u.s.tration OLD MISSION CHURCH (CIRCA), 1823, MACKINAC ISLAND.]
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